Articles from Working In These Times

BALTIMORE – Determined to win a larger role in the state Democratic Party organization, Maryland’s labor unions are entering the 2018 off-year election season early, and betting on some of their own rank-and-file members for places in the state legislature and other local offices.

Welcome to Interviews for Resistance. We’re now nearly one year into the Trump administration, and activists have scored some important victories. Yet there is always more to be done, and for many people, the question of where to focus and how to help remains. In this series, we talk with organizers, agitators, and educators, not only about how to resist, but how to build a better world.

My first #MeToo memory is from the kitchen of the Red Eagle Diner on Route 59 in Rockland County, N.Y. I was 16 years old, had moved out of my home, and was financially on my own. The senior waitresses in this classic Greek-owned diner schooled me fast. They explained that my best route to maximum cash was the weekend graveyard shift. “People are hungry and drunk after the bars close, and the tips are great,” one said.

One of corporate America’s next big goals might surprise you: passing legislation to prevent unions from having to represent workers who don’t pay dues. This is just the latest of many business-friendly labor law reforms proliferating across the country.

Florida Republicans are pushing a bill designed to deal the state’s unions a death blow. House Bill 25, which was introduced by Longwood state Rep. Scott Plakon, would decertify any union in which 50 percent of the workers don’t pay dues, thus preventing them from being able to collectively bargain. Despite the fact that unions negotiate for the benefit of all their workers, no employee is forced to pay dues in Florida, because it’s a “Right to Work” state.

Lupe Gonzalo works in the tomato fields of Immokalee, Fla., worlds apart from the Hollywood celebrities whose #MeToo testimony is exposing widespread sexual violence and toppling powerful men. Yet, Gonzalo says that it is women like her, “with no platform and no voice, invisible and vulnerable,” who bear the brunt of workplace sexual assault—and who offer lessons in how to band together to defeat it.

The flare-up of labor protests among Chinese retail workers at Walmart has cooled considerably over the last year, but the underlying issues are as hot as ever. Pressure is mounting on local labor unions to take a more active role in confronting the U.S.-based giant, according to a new report from the China Labour Bulletin (CLB), a Hong Kong-based worker advocacy group that keeps a close eye on multinational corporations active in the country.

On December 14, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) overturned a 2015 policy that had made it easier for workers—particularly fast-food workers—to unionize and challenge their employers over unfair labor practices.

Welcome to Interviews for Resistance. We’re now several months into the Trump administration, and activists have scored some important victories in those months. Yet there is always more to be done, and for many people, the question of where to focus and how to help remains. In this series, we talk with organizers, agitators, and educators, not only about how to resist, but how to build a better world.

In early November, the Department of Human Services (DHS) in Oklahoma sent letters to more than 20,000 disabled and elderly residents informing them that the in-home care services they were currently receiving as part of the ADvantage Waiver and In-Home Supports Waiver for Adults programs could be cut in one month. The full consequences of eliminating such vital programs are unimaginable but include reduced quality of life, poor health outcomes, extensive job loss and increased care costs.